Chenelle Walker, M.A., CCC-SLP
Doctoral Student
Language Acquisition and Bilingualism (LAB) Laboratory
Communication Sciences and Disorders
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Navigating Multiple Dialects as a Bidialectal Speaker
Within the United States, many African Americans (AAs) switch between African American English (AAE) and Standard American English (SAE) depending on context. While prior research has focused on the impact of linguistic differences between AAE and SAE on literacy performance in children, there is limited understanding of how the two dialects are processed by adults who speak AAE. One hundred adults identifying as Black or African American (M=32 years; 50 males), and characterized by variable levels of exposure to AAE, were recruited through the online experimental platform Prolific. Participants completed an auditory moving window task to investigate how they processed sentences produced in AAE and SAE. Results suggest that bidialectal adults are equally agile at processing both dialects, but that switches between dialects carry costs. Most importantly, bidialectal exposure may facilitate processing of both dialects.
Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant R01 DC016015 and U54 HD090256